March 9, 2017

Peter Nelson, my colleague at Center of the American Experiment, is one of the country’s leading experts on health care policy. On the Center’s web site, he urges conservatives to take a deep breath and understand the constraints that Congressional Republicans are working under.

In particular, a full repeal of Obamacare must get through the Senate, which means it must get 60 votes. There are only 52 Republican senators. Therefore, the first bill that has been unveiled is intended to be passed under the reconciliation process, which requires only a bare majority. Only Obamacare provisions that have a budgetary impact can be repealed in the reconciliation bill. Other measures will have to follow afterward.

Read the whole thing, although I’m still not convinced that a bad law with GOP fingerprints on it is an improvement over a worse law with Democrat fingerprints on it. Politically it could be much worse.

There’s an argument to be made that in order to keep up hope, the GOP has to be seen doing something about ObamaCare. But the Reid Option, followed swiftly by a full repeal, would actually accomplish what the Republicans have been promising for seven years and four election cycles now. In other words, doing what their constituents sent them to Washington to do.